37 40N 035 58W Heading 96 degrees at 5 KTS motor sailing
Pipedream
Tue 23 Jun 2009 00:25
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During this time of the year a major high pressure
sits more or less over the Azores. On one hand it pretty much protects
them from real bad weather this time of the year. Unfortunately it makes
sailing there tough because there are almost always light and variable winds
there. Of course tonight we read an old National Geographic where an
Azores fishing Captain says, "this is the north Atlantic where the weather is
pretty bad and the seas around here are 30 feet in the winter" - no
thanks. We are now about 350 miles from Horta our destination in the
Azores. We are running the motor whenever there is not enough wind to make
2.5 Kts. Which was last night and tonight so far. We are doing
pretty good on fuel and water so far. We have two tanks of each and have
used about half of one water tank and a quarter of one fuel tank in about 12
days. The days we don't run the engine we run the generator about two
hours to charge batteries.
Progress over the last couple of days has been slow
Day 9 - end of storm and hove too 45 miles, Day 10 100 miles, Day 11
yesterday 120 miles.
Chris spotted a shark circling the boat the
night we stopped to rest. Just like in Jaws. I didn't see it but
Matt said the dorsal fin stuck out of the water pretty far so it must have been
a pretty big guy. "Maybe we should get a bigger boat!" We have
been trolling two lines in the water every day but not a nibble yet. We
saw a feeding frenzy about a half mile to starboard yesterday and just watched
the water boil and the fish jump before it dawned on me to start the engine and
troll through it. I'll get it right if there is a next time. We are
coming up on the Azores's current. I think it is where the Gulf Stream
comes out over on this side of the Atlantic after making a big circle around the
north Atlantic. Probably some better fishing there. Sure could go
for a nice slab of fresh tuna. Chris pointed out at dinner tonight that
every time we go shopping we buy more cans of tuna and haven't opened one
yet.
I baked a fresh loaf of bread yesterday to have
with dinner. George made some dipping sauce from garlic, olive oil,
seasonings and the four of us proceeded to eat the whole loaf hot out of
the oven. I was concerned about our oven not getting hot enough but
it worked fine. We'll do that again. We have another sack of flour
and two packages of yeast left. Nothing like the smell of baking
bread. Tonight George, who is fast becoming our most of the time cook,
made corn beef patties, potato pancakes, and vegetables. Peaches and
pineapple for desert.
I've gotten questions about stuff breaking.
Keep in mind that there is a lot of mechanical stuff on this boat that is nice
to have but that is not really necessary to the safety of the crew or the
sailing of the boat to where we are going; an, that the boat has been used
nonstop by the four of us for almost two months now. Being
mechanically orientated that is what I focus on.and write about i.e. don't
worry... I am never satisfied with the way anything works. Mary bought me
a coffee cup that says something like 'if its not broken yet you can always just
take it apart, see how it works, loose a few pieces... and then you can
have something to fix. Ask Mary to tell you the guillotine joke
sometime... all for now. |